A Promise of Ankles

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “Oh well,” said Matthew.

  “Mind you,” said James, “he’s very happy apart from that. That psychologist who’s been seeing him has been very helpful. I spoke to her, too, and she told me that he’s been making good progress. She played Jimmy Shand and His Band to him the other day and he was quite calm. She said that he even started to tap the ground with his feet in time with the music. She says that’s a very positive sign.”

  “I’m so glad,” said Matthew. “And what about Pàdruig? Has he tried to get in touch?”

  “He went back to Stornoway,” said James. “He wrote to my uncle and apologised for being a bit too keen to teach him Gaelic. He says that maybe some time in the future he can take it up again.”

  “At least he realises that it was wrong,” said Matthew. “Gaelic is a beautiful language and it deserves better.” And he thought: the world would be so much poorer without its endangered languages. As words died, the thoughts behind them died too. And the colours and feelings and the words that went with those colours and feelings.

  “It’ll be very dull when we live in a monoglot sea of English,” mused Matthew.

  James looked up at the sky. “I agree,” he said. “I don’t want the world to be dull.”

  For the Duke’s part, he was grateful to have been released from captivity, however well-intentioned that captivity might have been. He liked Matthew and Elspeth, and doted on James. He also got on well with the triplets, Tobermory, Fergus and Rognvald, although, like most people, including – sometimes – Matthew, he could not tell which one was which. He spent hours helping Josefine, the Danish au pair engaged to assist James. Together they would invent new and unusual games for the boys, or bring out old favourites that would be played robustly and noisily on the lawn. There was Chase the Dentist, a version of Tig that involved everybody chasing one player and shouting Dentist! on catching him or her. It was not a sophisticated game, but it was one that appealed greatly to the small boys, as did West Highland Steamers, which involved two teams chasing one another in circles shouting, “Look out, MacBrayne!”

  “These Scottish games are very strange,” said Josefine. “We do not have their exact equivalent in Denmark, although we have one or two games that share certain features. There’s Bad Swedes, for instance, in which the children who are the Swedes have to go and hide from the children who are the Danes. When they find them, they have to shout Bad Swede! and then it’s the Danes’ turn to hide.”

  The Duke liked Josefine and Josefine liked the Duke. “We do not have people like him in Denmark,” she said to Elspeth. “They have all been abolished or have died.”

  James liked Josefine, but not quite as much as Josefine liked James. He found it a bit disconcerting that she should stand so close to him when she addressed any remark to him, and he also wished that she would spend less time gazing at him.

  “I think that young woman likes you,” whispered the Duke.

  “Oh well,” said James, blushing.

  Gradually, the Duke grew stronger. His sleep improved, and he no longer awoke five or six times a night muttering unintelligibly. A spell of unusually fine weather had settled over Scotland, and this meant that the Duke could sit out on the terrace in front of Elspeth’s garden room on an ancient cane sun lounger. Elspeth would sometimes read to him and Josefine would ferry cups of tea through from the kitchen. He and Elspeth would talk for hours, about all sorts of subjects, and Elspeth found this helpful and therapeutic, as did the Duke. She told him about her girlhood in Perthshire, and the Duke listened with real interest and pleasure to the stories she related.

  “It must have been very sunny then,” he said.

  “It was,” said Elspeth.

  “Is it easier to be a girl than a boy?” mused the Duke.

  “Both can be quite hard,” answered Elspeth. “I used to think that it would be much easier being a boy, but then I suppose I changed my mind. Now I realise that being a boy – and being a man too – can be very difficult.”

  “Especially today, don’t you think?” asked the Duke.

  Elspeth thought about this. “It’s become harder because men used to skew everything in their favour. They held on to the best jobs. They had all the fun while women had to toil away in the kitchen or look after the children. It was much easier for men in those days.”

  The Duke inclined his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right, and I’m sorry.”

  “But it’s different now,” said Elspeth. “At least to some extent.”

  “I wish people would treat one another better,” said the Duke, looking out over the lawn towards the hills to the south. Blue hills. Gentle hills. Hills that made one realise how lovely a country is Scotland. He looked at his hands, and then at his feet, in his brown brogue shoes. He looked up at the sky.

  68

  You’ve Been a Good Friend

  Leaning against the counter in Big Lou’s coffee bar, Matthew said to James, “And I’ll have a slice of that stuff over there, whatever it is.” And then added, “Actually, James, I’ll have two slices – if you think Stuart would like one.” He nodded in the direction of Stuart, who was waiting for him at one of the tables.

  “Cinnamon-spiced bacon monkey bread,” said James. “Stuart likes that. He had it the other day.”

  From behind the bar, Big Lou caught Matthew’s eye. “One of James’s creations,” she said. “It’s going down very well with the more progressive customers.”

  Matthew laughed. “You flatter me, Lou. Progressive. Very nice.”

  Big Lou had not intended it as a compliment. “Progressive actually means conformist, Matthew. A follower of intellectual fashion.”

  James served Matthew with the monkey bread and returned to his task of preparing more bacon rolls. At the table, Matthew said to Stuart, “That young man is changing everything. Look at the people in here today. Twice as many as usual.”

  Stuart gazed about him. “And a slightly different crowd, as well. A bit trendier, if I may say so. Apart from us, of course.”

  Matthew grinned. “I don’t mind if people consider me fuddy-duddy.”

  Stuart assured him that he would not think of Matthew in those terms. “Having been married to Irene for some time, I’ve had enough of being on the cutting edge.” He paused. “Not that I want anything to actually go backwards – I don’t want that. But I don’t see the merit in challenging everything.”

  “Would you describe your views as conservative, Matthew?” asked Stuart. “In a general sense, that is?”

  “Not particularly,” replied Matthew. “I believe in reforming things that need to be reformed. I believe in social goods. I believe that the most stable and probably the most reasonable position on anything is probably to be found in the centre. I believe in compromise and sharing and making sure that everybody has a chance. I believe that we should listen to one another and accept that those with whom we may disagree have their own view of the good and should be respected. I believe in not insulting those from whom we differ.”

  Stuart listened in silence. When Matthew finished, he nodded slowly. “That doesn’t sound like conservatism to me. It sounds more like moderation, perhaps, which is not the same thing, and which is, I suspect, what the vast majority of people want.” He paused. “And yet that’s not what the world is like at the moment, is it? There’s all this chest-beating. On all sides. Bluster. Dislike. Scorn. Blaming others for everything. Posturing.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Matthew, ruefully. “I sometimes wonder why we can’t be nice to one another – naïve though that sounds.” Nice, he thought, was a tired little word, even prissy; but everybody knew what it meant.

  “It’s not naïve to be courteous and respectful of others,” said Stuart. “It’s…it’s the opposite of naïve, in fact, which is…What is the opposite of naïvety, Matthew?”

  “Wisdom?” suggested Matthe
w. “Understanding? Perspica-city?”

  Matthew studied Stuart as he spoke. There was an elephant in the room.

  “And you?” he asked directly. “How are you doing, Stuart? After…” He trailed off. “After Katie?”

  He mentioned her name tentatively, almost apologetically. Sometimes it was better for people not to be spoken of, or at least not named: one never knew what the jettisoned felt about those who cast them off.

  “You know she’s seeing Bruce?”

  Matthew winced. “I’d heard that. Big Lou told me.” He hesitated before continuing. “I must confess I was surprised. I mean, Bruce, of all people…”

  “Women like him,” said Stuart flatly. “They like him a lot. He exercises some sort of power over then. They fall for him. I’ve seen it so often.”

  Matthew sighed. “It’s because of his looks, I imagine. He’s very good-looking, isn’t he?”

  Stuart agreed. But he found it hard to bring himself to say it: many men did not comment appreciatively on the looks of other men because that was an area of taboo: you didn’t say it. But Matthew had always thought it odd that men had to say things like “Women consider him good-looking”, the implication being that the female gaze could reach that conclusion, but the heterosexual male gaze should not. Men should be more honest, he thought. We could see male beauty every bit as well as women could.

  Now Stuart said, “Sex, Matthew.”

  Matthew said nothing.

  “He’s better at such things than I am.”

  Matthew took a bite of his cinnamon-spiced bacon monkey bread. “Oh, I don’t know about that…” He realised, though, that he did know about it, and Stuart was undoubtedly right. So he said, “That’s not everything, you know.”

  “Of course, it isn’t. I know that. But…”

  “But,” said Matthew, “if that’s the way she looks at it, you’re better off without her. Because one thing’s certain, Stuart – the physical side of things is not enough to keep a relationship going in the long term. There’s far more to it than that.”

  Stuart fished in his pocket. “She wrote to me,” he said. “She wrote and told me how sorry she was. She said she couldn’t help herself.”

  Matthew was dismissive. “She could, of course. She didn’t have to…”

  “She sent me a poem.”

  Matthew expressed surprise.

  “Would you like to hear it?” asked Stuart. “It’s very short.”

  He unfolded the piece of paper and began to read aloud:

  You may not believe I loved you once, my dear:

  I did.

  You may not think I had hoped to be better than I was:

  I had.

  You may not have thought I’d be unworthy of you:

  I was.

  Matthew was silent. Then he said, “What a strange little poem.”

  “Yes,” said Stuart. “I don’t know how to take it. I don’t know whether it’s meant to be an apology or a justification. Or a shaft of self-reproach.”

  Matthew decided to change the subject. “And how’s Bertie?” he asked.

  Stuart’s mood lifted visibly. “He’s having a whale of a time in Glasgow. He’s over there with his friend, Ranald Braveheart Macpherson. They’ve had almost three weeks now and they’ll be back next week.”

  “You’ll be looking forward to seeing him.”

  “I certainly am,” said Stuart. And he thought: all right, I haven’t got a girlfriend after all and I suspect that it’s going to be hard to get one. But at least I’ve got the children, and my job, and friends, and the flat in Scotland Street.

  He looked at Matthew with warmth. “You’ve been a good friend to me, Matthew.”

  “And you to me, Stuart. You’ve been a good friend too.”

  They finished their cinnamon-spiced bacon monkey bread and drank their coffee. Neither spoke; neither felt the need.

  69

  Temptation, Its Various Forms

  Ten days later, as autumn began to stamp its authority on the last days of summer, Angus and Domenica held a large dinner party in Scotland Street. It was, as they described it, the “usual affair” – a gathering of like-minded old friends and some new ones, too, for conversation and an eccentric and unpredictable buffet dinner. The conversation was wide-ranging, and often light-hearted, suffused, for reasons that nobody could quite fathom, with a particular sort of celebratory kindness. Things said in the past were encouraged to be said again, in the knowledge that repeated stories are appreciated all the more for their having been aired before. So it was that Angus’s story of the unsophisticated local politician who, having heard that certain people had made allegations against him, expressed a wish “to meet those alligators” could be repeated, savoured, and thoroughly laughed at, even on its sixth iteration.

  The guests were invited for six-thirty, but by five o’clock two of them were already there, helping Domenica with preparations in the kitchen while Angus tidied the two rooms in which everybody would be congregating. This advance party, happy to roll up their sleeves and work, consisted of Domenica’s old friend, Dilly Emslie, her husband, Derek, and Angus’s friend, James Holloway, with whom he and Cyril had found the Neanderthal skull in the gardens below Moray Place.

  Dilly had not heard of the find, and was entertained by Domenica to the full story, or debacle, as she called it.

  “It was most unfortunate,” said Domenica. “Poor Dr Colquohoun was very upset. We told him that these things happen, but he seemed to take the whole thing very personally.”

  “And you almost recovered it, I gather,” prompted James, as he skilfully jointed a brace of roast guinea fowl.

  “Yes,” said Domenica. “Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna found it, as it happens, on the 23 bus and took it home. But then she threw it in the kitchen bin and by the time Angus heard about it, Antonia Collie had put the contents out and the men had carted it away. It was too late to do anything about it. We could hardly sift through tons of Edinburgh refuse to find a Neanderthal skull.”

  “Such a pity,” said Dilly. “Mind you, I’m not sure that we want an Edinburgh Neanderthal. We have the Festival, after all – and the Fringe. I’d be inclined to say that’s enough. There has to be a limit.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” said James.

  Dilly remembered something. “Somebody in Ann Street found a mammoth tusk a couple of years ago,” she said. “It was excavated from their back garden when they were putting in an ornamental fountain. Everybody was very excited, but the Ann Street Committee decided it would be best not to publicise the discovery. So they took it over to the council refuse place and recycled it.”

  “Probably the wisest thing to do,” said James.

  They continued to work on the food until the main body of guests arrived. Stuart and Nicola came up from downstairs, and Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna and Antonia Collie came from around the corner in Drummond Place. Then there were Matthew and Elspeth, the triplets being looked after by Josefine and James. Judith McClure was there, and Roger Collins, too, who was in a mood to celebrate, having just completed the first two chapters of his history of Eurasia – a work of staggering scope.

  Angus had invited Glenbucket, whose portrait he had recently completed to the sitter’s complete satisfaction. Glenbucket was overdressed for the occasion – wearing full Highland regalia – but seemed indifferent to this fact and enjoyed the vocal admiration of the other guests.

  “How adventurous to wear three different tartans at once,” said James Holloway.

  Glenbucket might have detected a certain irony there, but did not. “I’m entitled to all of them,” he said. “One way or another.”

  The conversation flowed freely, fuelled by the generosity of the hosts’ cellar. A Portuguese Vinho Verde was available for those who preferred white wine, while tho
se who favoured red had a choice of a Médoc and a South Australian Cabernet Sauvignon.

  “Will Lyons recommended this Médoc in his column,” said Angus, as he poured James a glass, “and he should know.”

  “I feel very reassured,” said James.

  With the onset of autumn, the evenings were drawing in, and by eight o’clock, shortly before dinner was due to be served, the sky had darkened. Inside the flat, curtains were drawn and lamps switched on, as the hubbub of conversation rose and fell. But then, quite unexpectedly, the light flickered and went out.

  “Power cut,” called out one of the guests.

  The flat was plunged into complete darkness.

  “I’ll find some candles,” called out Angus.

  “Oh dear,” said Domenica. “I know it’ll be very atmospheric, but there are still things in the warming oven.”

  The darkness, although clearly it would be temporary, brought silence. Conversations that had started froze halfway; somebody cleared his throat; another bumped against a small table and sent a glass tumbling to the floor. And then there was a sudden shout – a cry of pain.

  “What’s happening?” Matthew called out. “Angus, is somebody hurt?”

  The light flickered and returned as suddenly as it had disappeared. Angus, halfway to the cupboard where the candles were stored, turned around sharply.

  “Is everybody all right?” he asked.

  From a corner of the room, Glenbucket called out in response. “Something bit my leg.”

  Matthew was standing next to the bekilted figure and bent down to examine the place on Glenbucket’s leg where the bite was said to have occurred. “It’s your ankle,” he said.

  Glenbucket, bent over double, massaged the affected limb. He looked more puzzled than uncomfortable. “Yes,” he said. “My ankle. It was a sudden, sharp pain. A nip, I think.”

  Angus looked about him. He knew immediately what had happened and he would now find the culprit. He muttered an apology to Glenbucket and left the room. A bedroom door, half open, confirmed his suspicions. Here, underneath the bed, shivering with guilt, lay Cyril, feigning sleep but unable to control his quivering.